ing of respectful liking: it had
always been that way with real men where she was concerned.

When Amir Kahn passed an order that Bootea was to be treated as a
queen, his officers smiled in their heavy black beards and whispered
that his two wives would yet be hand-maidens to a third, the favourite.

Hunsa saw all this, for he was the one that often carried a message to
the Gulab that her presence was desired in the palace. But there were
always others there; the players and the musicians--the ones who played
the sitar (guitar) and the violin; and the officers.

Hunsa was getting impatient. Every time he looked at the handsome
black-bearded head of the warrior he was like a covetous thief gazing
upon a diamond necklace that is almost within his grasp. He had come
there to kill him and delay was dangerous. He had been warned by the
Dewan that they suspected Barlow meant to visit the Chief on behalf of
the British. He might turn up any day. When he spoke to Bootea about
her part in the mission, the enticing of Amir Khan to her tent so that
he might be killed, she simply answered:

"Hunsa, you will wait until I give you a command to kill the Chief. If
you do not, it is very likely that you will be the sacrifice, for he is
not one to be driven." She vowed that if he broke this injunction she
would denounce him to Amir Khan; she would have done so at first but
for the idea that treachery to her people could not be justified but by
dire necessity.

Every day the Gulab, as she walked through the crowded street, scanned
the faces of men afoot and on horseback, looking for one clothed as a
Patan, but in his eyes the something she would know, the something that
would say he was the deified one. And she had told Amir Khan that
there was a Patan coming with a message for him, and that when such an
one asked for audience that he should say nothing, but see that he was
admitted.

Then one day--it was about two weeks of waiting--Captain Barlow came.
He was rather surprised at the readiness with which he was admitted for
an audience with the Chief. It was in the audience hall that he was
received, and the Chief was surrounded, as he sat on the Raja's dais,
by officers.

Barlow had come as Ayub Alli, an Afghan, and as it was a private
interview he desired, he made the visit a formal one, the paying of
respects, with the usual presenting of the hilt of his sword for the
Chief to touch with the tips of his fingers in the